Inside the Palisade (9 page)

“Yes, ma’am.”

The door opens and closes, followed by the sound of a chair being dragged across the carpet, I think. The officer must be getting comfortable for the wait. I want to get back into my quarters. Apart from anything else, I need my spare lenses. Maybe we could overpower the guard. But she’s probably armed. We wouldn’t stand much of a chance. Could I count on this boy’s help anyway? He taps my forearm, and I whirl around. He’s so close I can almost feel his facial fur against my skin. I back away and raise my palms.

Placing an index finger to his lips, he points down the tunnel toward a muted light far ahead. He taps his chest, presumably to indicate that he will go first and I should follow. Then he presses his finger back to his lips. I roll my eyes, but he either ignores me or doesn’t notice. Without a sound, he removes his shoes and places them to the side before angling past me in the confined space. I feel the heat of his body as he crawls past. Crouching on hands and knees, he starts half-crawling, half-sliding through the vent.

I press my ear to the grate once more. Hearing nothing in the room below, I turn to follow him. I’m used to living in cramped quarters, but these vents are stifling. I can feel the grease building up on my hands and knees as I maintain an uncomfortable crouch. My injuries pulse with each movement. The
deman
seems at home here.

We slither through the ductwork for a long time, taking a steadily rising path. Sometimes, we have to clamber up steeply slanted inclines. We’re obviously moving toward the higher levels of the housing block. The moldy smell increases. I consider doubling back and breaking away, but even if I wanted to, the tunnels are too narrow to turn around with enough speed. He’d
catch me before I got far, and much as I hate to admit it, I need him. He’s the only one who can get me safely away from the commander’s trap. After what he heard in my quarters, he has to believe I’m not working with her.

He maintains a punishing pace, hardly ever pausing to check direction. How long has he been here, within the palisade? The temperature continues to rise as we climb, the air becoming thicker as we move upward. Occasionally, he twists around to check on me, but he doesn’t speak. I try to mirror his gait, but I’m much more clumsy. The fact that I’m wearing a robe over my pajamas doesn’t help. I have to keep hitching it up to avoid tumbling. I could take it off, but these are the only clothes I have right now.

Finally, he stops and stretches an arm out to hold me back. He points at a metal grate in front of us. From what I can see, it looks pretty much the same as the one above my quarters, the one we were listening through. He bends forward to slide it aside. With a gesture for me to stay back, he pokes his head into the space below and looks around. It’s dark, so whoever’s quarters they are, the occupants are either not here, or they’re asleep.

Apparently satisfied, he positions himself above the opening and jumps down feet first. I’m alone. I wonder if I should try to get away from him now. If I could find a way out of here, I might get back to the Temples’ quarters and ask for their help, but how would I find my way out of this labyrinth without the
deman’s
help? A beam of light flickers up from below. I back away as a thud sounds underneath me, and the light grows brighter.

“What are you doing?” The boy’s voice startles me as he peers over the rim of the vent. I should have known I wouldn’t be able to move quickly enough to escape. “Come over here and let me help you down.”

I have no choice. He hoists himself into the duct and beckons to me. I pause, casting a longing glance down the tunnel we came from before sliding over to him. My ankle scrapes across the
grate, and I wince. When I’m close enough, he wraps his arms around my waist. I try to jerk away, but he pulls me closer before flattening himself on his stomach beside the panel, still holding me tight, easing me into place over the opening. Beads of sweat break out on my forehead.

“Don’t worry.” His voice is calm. “Lower yourself down. There’s a crate below. I’ll hold you until your feet touch it.” His arms are sure and strong, making me feel surprisingly steady as he nudges me over. I let myself dangle into the space below, allowing my body to drop until his arms are hooked under my shoulders. I clutch at his forearms and kick out with my feet, desperate for purchase.

“Easy. It’s only a couple more inches. You’re going to have to let yourself drop.” His voice remains controlled despite the effort of holding me. He’s unbelievably strong.

With no choice, I let myself fall. He hasn’t lied. I land on something solid. I crouch down and run my fingertips over it. It’s a wooden crate, its surface worn smooth. I swivel to take in the surroundings: a cramped rectangular room hardly bigger than a closet. The air is stale. There’s a pallet covered in messy bedding crammed against the longer wall and a makeshift set of shelves holding what look like antique books made of real paper. A single lamp on the top of the bookcase illuminates the space.

“Stand back. I’m coming down.” His voice echoes from the vent above.

I move from the crate to avoid getting crushed as he jumps. Then he’s in front of me, large and looming.

“Where are we?” I ask.

“This is my room. We should be safe here.” He steps off the crate and shoves it against the wall opposite the bed.

“Your room? How do you have a room here?”

“I guess I’ll have to explain everything now. Would you like to sit, Daughter Wye?” He gestures to the crate.

“Please stop calling me that. My name is Omega.”

“I hate those Greek letters. Can’t I call you something else?” He folds his arms over his chest.

“Anything but Daughter Wye.”

He strokes his furry jaw as he assesses me. “Hmm. How about Meg? You look like a Meg.”

“Okay, I guess.”

Waving me toward the crate, he plunks down on the bed, sitting cross-legged, like we used to in our elementary school classes.

“And what am I supposed to call you?” I ask, remaining on my feet.

“How about my name?”

“What’s your name?” I cross my arms over my chest, mirroring his earlier stance.

A half-grin spreads over his face, one side of his mouth lifting higher than the other. “Since you asked so nicely, my name is Ghent.”

“Ghent?” I try out the sound in my mouth. “That’s a strange name.”

“Sit down, would you? You’re giving me a headache.”

I perch on the edge of the crate. It’s uncomfortable, but it’s better than the floor. The
deman
breaks the silence. “You were telling the truth? About that commander? You’re really not working with her?”

“Of course I’m not.”

“Tell me what happened.” His charcoal eyes are serious. He’s wearing the same clothes as when we first met, dark shirt and trousers, wrinkled and dirty. His hair is tousled, dust streaks his face, but I can see how pale his skin is beneath all that dirt.

“The commander hurt you? Because of me?” He wipes his brow, leaving a trail of grime on his forehead.

“Who’s Delta?” I ask.

He shoves a lock of his matted hair behind his ears. “My mother.”

“You have a mother?”

“Of course. Don’t you?”

“Yes, but you’re a—”

“Person. Just like you.”

I choke back a retort. He’s not like me. Then I think back to what the Temples told me. I was born to a real monster myself, certainly more of a monster than this boy. He leans over and yanks off his socks, shoving them on top of a pile of rumpled clothes in the corner. This really is his room. A
deman’s
room. Inside the palisade. Finally the pieces start to fall into place.

“Your mother,” I say. “She’s a Med-Tech?” That’s why he was waiting for her outside the Clinic. That’s how he knows first-aid. “What happened to her?”

“That’s kind of a long story.” He leans back on his elbows and stretches out, rolling his neck from side to side.

“Are we really safe here?” I ask.

“For now. This room is hidden behind a secret panel in my mother’s quarters. It used to be a walk-in robe but Del – Delta – had it deleted from the plans so no one would know it was here. And the scanners don’t operate in here either.”

Not that there’s anything to scan. Neither of us has a communicator.

“So who goes first?” I ask. Judging by his expression, he obviously has no idea what I’m talking about. I clarify, “Your story or mine?”

“I’ll flip you for it.” He pulls a copper disc out of his pocket and extends it to me.

“What’s that?”

“A penny. Ancient currency. In the old days, this is how people made decisions.” He plops the disc into my outstretched palm. It’s dull and worn. I examine each side. On one, I can make out a face with a lot of fur around the jowls, more even than the boy standing in front of me. The other side of the disc is harder to make out. There are some words and vertical lines, but none
of it makes any sense.

“What do I do with it?” I say.

“Throw it in the air and catch it. I’ll call heads or tails and whatever comes up, that’s who goes first.”

“Tails?”

“Never mind.” He takes the coin back, grazing my palm with his fingers. Just like when he took the knife from me outside the Clinic.

He tosses the token in the air and says “heads” before catching it and slapping it onto his wrist. “Tails. You first.”

I feel as if I’ve been tricked, but there’s nothing else to do for now so I tell him everything that happened to me since I met him. I speed up when I get to my encounter with the commander. I don’t want to relive it in too much detail. He winces when I describe what she did to me, but doesn’t interrupt. For some reason, I hesitate at the point when Upsilon returns me to my quarters. I’m not sure if I should tell him what the Temples told me, at least not yet. It’s not important right now.

“Your turn,” I say when I’m done with my own story minus the bit about my
deman
heritage. “What did your mother do that was so terrible? Other than hiding you, I mean.”

“That’s not enough?”

I realize how naïve I sound. “Why is it an issue now? You’ve obviously been here a while.” I indicate the well lived-in state of his bedroom with its untidy piles of books and clothes.

He takes a deep breath. “Not her. Them.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, I have two mothers.”

I don’t know why I didn’t realize this was a possibility. It seems so unbelievable that not one, but two, women know about him. This boy has two mothers while I have only one.

“It’s not that uncommon, you know.” He sounds offended. “Lots of people have two mothers.”

“Lots of
women
have two mothers.” I can’t help correcting him.
It’s one of my faults actually, my desire to always be right about everything.

“You don’t have two mothers,” he says. His tone makes me sink back into the wall, but he ignores me and continues his story. His fingers flex around the edges of the mattress. He starts by telling me both his mothers’ names: Delta, which of course I already know, and Epsie, short for Epsilon. Epsie is a history teacher, who gave up teaching to devote her life to Ghent, raising him, teaching him, and keeping him hidden.

Delta and Epsie were sweethearts from a young age. Epsie knew her Calling was motherhood even before she met Delta. Epsie wanted to become an Expectant soon after they got together, and she wanted Delta to be the one to administer the Procedure. Delta had only recently qualified as a Med-Tech, but she felt confident that she could do it. It would be a special bond between them. No one would know until after it was done.

They snuck into a Procedure Room in the middle of the night, so Delta could perform the implantation. The first trimester was uneventful. They avoided the Nest because it wasn’t compulsory back then, and those who went there tended to wait until their second trimester. No one knew Epsie was an Expectant. She was a small woman anyway, and the only noticeable difference about her was that she had dark circles under her eyes from the morning sickness and lack of sleep.

Epsie began to show early in the second trimester, and the two women knew they would soon have to tell their friends. They wanted to do an ultra-scan to ensure all was well before telling anyone. They went to the Clinic late one night when no one was around, and Delta performed the unauthorized scan. She was good with the technology and able to delete the traces of her after-hours access to the system. But something went wrong. The way the
deman
tells it, Epsie had always felt something strange was happening before Delta even read the results of the scan. The scan only confirmed it. A male child. Conceived within
the palisade.

Delta blamed herself. She realized they would have to terminate the fetus and delete all traces of what they did. She offered to perform the procedure that night but Epsie couldn’t go through with it. She was so upset Delta had to sedate her. Delta didn’t know what else to do. She told Ghent later that she had stayed up that whole night, worrying. The next morning Epsie had woken in good spirits. Delta was worried that Epsie had lost her mind during the night. She was talking about looking forward to impending motherhood. Delta knew she couldn’t get psychological help for Epsie, not in her condition. No one could know Epsie was an Expectant. Epsie tried to explain that she had spent the night working out how to keep the child. Her idea was that Delta could monitor her condition and keep the medical records hidden. Epsie would wear loose clothing until her Expectancy became too obvious to hide. After that, she would simply stay out of sight for the duration, and Delta would cover for her saying she was ill or had gone on a retreat or something like that. As Ghent tells it, Epsie’s next words to Delta that morning sealed the deal: “Think about it, Del. Fate has granted us this child. How can we ignore destiny?”

At that moment, Delta had known Epsie was right. Destiny or not, they had done this together, and they had to see it through. Whatever the consequences.

I’m hanging on the boy’s every word, wanting to know everything about his past. “Why did they call you Ghent?”

“What?” Ghent’s shoulders sag. Telling me this much seems to have taken a toll on him. I realize with a start I’m probably the first person who’s ever heard any of this.